AndyDufresne wrote:This suggestion would seem to encourage a general lack of playing with "everyone" ...which is far worse than the multi argument that is also against it.

--Andy

Maybe, but doesn't allowing Private Games already do this? I would think it would open things up as high ranks might be more willing to play noobs or lower ranked players than they might otherwise do.

I concur. One of the main obstacles in playing with "everyone" is the point disparity, and as much as people say "well, if there's that much of a difference in ranks, you're expected to beat the lower guy", we all know that the best laid plans can go awry when faced with the grim reality presented by our fickles six-sided mistresses. If anything, I think a wagering system might promote even more play between people of vastly different ranks.

High ranked players could play against skilled lower ranked players without having a lopsided point total award to the winner.

Super high ranking players might not like this because it threatens their comfy levels of superiority, but they can manage.

High ranked players would in fact love this.

Instead of playing a game against weaker opposition and risking, say, 80 points and only picking up 10 points if they win, they'll now be able to risk 50 and win 50. This will only serve to encourage those who, already, play weaker players just to take the few easy points from them. With this they'll get lots more points. It might even encourage more players who are honestly striving to increase their score to pick on new/weak players. Why play someone who is good when you can win just as many points by playing a weaker player?

I know lots of people like the betting idea, but it can't work with ranking points. In fact it breaks ranking points. Ranking points are intended to measure a player's skill at playing the ConquerClub game. Turn them into betting chips and they'll measure a person's skill at getting good odds on the outcome of a game (regardless of the actual outcome). Instead of sportsmen playing a sport and the best players being rewarded betting will change ConquerClub to reward the best gamblers and the playing of the game itself will become a sideshow - like horse racing - where the jockeys and horses are just a means to an end.

It could be made to work by giving players a skill point ranking and also giving them a betting point account, but I'm not advocating that. That's simply not what ConquerClub is about.

cicero, one thing you missed is that it is agreed upon beforehand. If a noob would rather get the 80 points off of you to beat you, do you think he'll accept 50? If I'm not mistaken everyone has to agree that wagering will be allowed in the game beforehand, at least according to the suggestion.

AndyDufresne wrote:This suggestion would seem to encourage a general lack of playing with "everyone" ...which is far worse than the multi argument that is also against it.

--Andy

Maybe, but doesn't allowing Private Games already do this? I would think it would open things up as high ranks might be more willing to play noobs or lower ranked players than they might otherwise do.

I concur. One of the main obstacles in playing with "everyone" is the point disparity, and as much as people say "well, if there's that much of a difference in ranks, you're expected to beat the lower guy", we all know that the best laid plans can go awry when faced with the grim reality presented by our fickles six-sided mistresses. If anything, I think a wagering system might promote even more play between people of vastly different ranks.

correct, proper wagering would reduce stress levels of high ranked players and give lower ranked player a shot to play with the big boys instead of noobs and dead beaters.

It is an interesting idea. I still worry about the abuse mentioned earlier (either from multis or a group of people intentionally throwing games)...Mostly because we'll be the ones investigating while you guys are playing and enjoying!

AndyDufresne wrote:It is an interesting idea. I still worry about the abuse mentioned earlier (either from multis or a group of people intentionally throwing games)...Mostly because we'll be the ones investigating while you guys are playing and enjoying!

--Andy

If controlled with the measures I've stated, I don't think there is much room for abuse. New recruits could only wager 2.5% or 25 points, and only if they were premium. As for throwing games, you could easily have an algorithm to detect high wager low round count games.

Lack should really consider the financials of it, I'd guess that there would be a 10% jump in conversions at least.

AndyDufresne wrote:It is an interesting idea. I still worry about the abuse mentioned earlier (either from multis or a group of people intentionally throwing games)...Mostly because we'll be the ones investigating while you guys are playing and enjoying!

--Andy

People throw games now anyways!! this would be much easier to tack than the present system in place!

mibi, imagine this.the AADOMM group decides they want a conqueror. simply start 4 8player games where each player wagers 100 points, then the same player wins them all. that's a cool 2800 points for the winner. how will mods prove it was a secret plan? because it's fairly easy to make all the games seem hard fought and won on merit.

“In the beginning God said, the four-dimensional divergence of an antisymmetric, second rank tensor equals zero, and there was light, and it was good. And on the seventh day he rested.”- Michio Kaku

mibi, imagine this.the AADOMM group decides they want a conqueror. simply start 4 8player games where each player wagers 100 points, then the same player wins them all. that's a cool 2800 points for the winner. how will mods prove it was a secret plan? because it's fairly easy to make all the games seem hard fought and won on merit.

whats to stop them from doing the same without wagering?

also, you need to find 8 premiums with over 2000 points each who don't mind dropping 400 points each. Thats assuming a 5% max bet, with a 2.5% max bet you would need 4000 points to bet 100.

mibi, imagine this.the AADOMM group decides they want a conqueror. simply start 4 8player games where each player wagers 100 points, then the same player wins them all. that's a cool 2800 points for the winner. how will mods prove it was a secret plan? because it's fairly easy to make all the games seem hard fought and won on merit.

whats to stop them from doing the same without wagering?

simple. in a normal 8p game vs 7 similar ranked players you'd get just 140 points. not 700

mibi wrote:also, you need to find 8 premiums with over 2000 points each who don't mind dropping 400 points each.

easy. all people in AADOMM have premium and many of them have over 2000. if a rotation system where everyone gets to be conqueror is implemented then volunteers can be found.

mibi wrote:Thats assuming a 5% max bet, with a 2.5% max bet you would need 4000 points to bet 100.

I don't see this as a very likely scenario.

with a 2.5% max bet you'd just need 8 games instead of 4. to avoid suspicion of winning 8 in a row simply play 15 games and win 11. or make 20 games win 8 with 50 points bet and lose 12 with 5 points bet.

wining 8 out of 20 is not that hard and you could claim it's a coincidence those 8 had the max bet. very hard to prove otherwise

“In the beginning God said, the four-dimensional divergence of an antisymmetric, second rank tensor equals zero, and there was light, and it was good. And on the seventh day he rested.”- Michio Kaku

See, DiM, here's the problem: you always find these ways in which interesting new game features could be abused, without taking one salient fact into account: the CC mods are not complete fucking retards.

Your scenario would require:A) Absolutely no mention of the plan within the AADOMM subforumB) 8 cartographers, perhaps the people MOST invested in the site, willing to throw away their reputations and any built-up community goodwill, along with all their points and 25 bucks (see E)C) mods and multi-hunters literally asleep at the switchD) various self-appointed hunters completely failing to notice that all of a sudden cairnswk (for example, not that I think he'd participate in such a cockamamie scheme) is the conqueror with 5000+ pointsE) no common-sense mechanisms built into the feature, like a point cap (I like mibi's 2.5% suggestion), harsher penalties (like the ones I mentioned earlier in the thread, first offense point reset and loss of premium, second offense bannination, or you could always strip people of their ability to wager points), or even a games cap (perhaps preventing anyone who hasn't played a 100 or so points from wagering, to keep newbie premiums safe from the ravages of upper echelon point farming)

Can wagering be abused? Of course. But the current system can be abused...

Besides, here's the thing: suppose a cabal of players do game the system like you've laid out, and by some miracle they get clean away with it, with no penalties. So what? Half the damn points exchanged on this site come down to maps, settings, and luck. And would the actions of such a cabal really have such an influence on you personally?

i used the map makers and the AADOMM clan just as an example. you don't have to take it literally.

now considering the fact that people for some weird reason like to cheat and some even make multiple accounts and pay premium for all i'm pretty sure that there will be people trying to abuse any breach in the system including this one.

you ask me why i am bothered and what makes me think the multihunters won't catch them? well it's pretty simple. we've had 3 (maybe more) conquerors busted for cheating and except for krusher the others kept their points and their premium.

and finally this suggestion allows abuse in one of the shadiest and hardest to prove areas of cheating: throwing games/ secret alliances.

it takes a lot of games to establish a pattern and even then it's pretty damn hard to decide with 100% certainty that a game was thrown or a secret alliance existed. at most there would probably be a block between players but no points reset or premium strip.

i'll make a small example. you me and mibi.

3 players. all premium, all above 2000 points.we decide you guys shall give me 600 points. with a 2.5% cap that means you can bet 60 points so i need to win 5 games.i'm damn certain we could play 5 straight games where i win everytime and nobody could prove it was cheating. of course if we were some kind of morons that have no idea how to disguise a game we might get caught but we aren't so some equal share attacking, no obvious undefended borders, no nothing, just play along nicely and make sure i win. how could they prove it wasn't skill?

and you know what? if we lived in an utopian society i would love the suggestion, especially for the no-point games but we don't. unfortunately people are somehow genetically programmed to cheat and this suggestion allows them to do that

“In the beginning God said, the four-dimensional divergence of an antisymmetric, second rank tensor equals zero, and there was light, and it was good. And on the seventh day he rested.”- Michio Kaku

Can I quote myself ... since I think DiM's paranoia is overshadowing the true flaw. Namely:

cicero wrote:I know lots of people like the betting idea, but it can't work with ranking points. In fact it breaks ranking points. Ranking points are intended to measure a player's skill at playing the ConquerClub game. Turn them into betting chips and they'll measure a person's skill at getting good odds on the outcome of a game (regardless of the actual outcome*). Instead of sportsmen playing a sport and the best players being rewarded betting will change ConquerClub to reward the best gamblers and the playing of the game itself will become a sideshow - like horse racing - where the jockeys and horses are just a means to an end.

It could be made to work by giving players a skill point ranking and also giving them a betting point account, but I'm not advocating that. That's simply not what ConquerClub is about.

* whether that outcome is achieved by fair competitive play or by cheating.

No he doesn't. He seems to think winning a game requires only luck, like betting on horse racing. In order to win wagered points, you still have win your game.

Andy, did you even read his 'excellent points'?

I agree with Cicero also.the scoreboard is supposed to represent how good you are at playing risk.If you can gamble your points away, it screws the whole system, cause the guy up top might have just gotten lucky and won a 100 point bet game.We're trying to bring the scoreboard closer to representing actual skill. adding gambling would drag it in completely the opposite direction.

No he doesn't. He seems to think winning a game requires only luck, like betting on horse racing. In order to win wagered points, you still have win your game.

mibi

I'm not suggesting that to win a game requires only luck. There is an element of luck in any one game, but over an extended series of games, a player's true skill shows through. Over an extended series of games if a player wins more games than luck alone would suggest then he/she is a better than average player (ignoring 'cheap' methods of obtaining points for the purposes of this thread). If over an extended series of games a player wins less games than luck would suggest then he/she is a weaker than average player. The current ranking system (notwithstanding its flaws which I am ready to acknowledge) reflects this and ranks change accordingly.

The core of the current rankling system mechanism (and this is a part that works well) is that the number of points won and lost in a game are directly related to the apparent relative skill levels of the players concerned. Remove this connection and you break ranking points as a concept.

A rank is by definition intended as an absolute measure of a player's ability. Hence a player of skill X will reach rank X over an extended period of games. Take me as an example. I play typically 6,7 or 8 player games and I win about 1 in 4. Which is better than luck alone would suggest and hence my rank is now pretty much stable at Sergeant 1st Class. That's because I now win about the same number of points in the 1 in 4 games that I win as I lose cumulatively in the other 3 of the 4. And that balance is produced by the current points formula.

As a better than average player if you change that formula and allow me to reap more points for winning my one game than I am due and lose fewer points than I am due in the other three then my points will continue to rise. Which of course it shouldn't because I'm not actually getting any better am I?

The converse is true for weaker than average players: Their ranks will continue to fall even though they not getting any worse.

I have no idea about legalities, programming etc etc but I when using the interweb I use it for two main thing.... CC and Casinos.. well there are three, but that involves women contortionists, and I digress....

Specifics:

I think it would be a great idea if you could place wages on your matches, ever played one of those "skill game" sites... play pool against some youth in Azerbyjan for a quid?

I would love to be able to "put my money where my mouth is" on CC games you could wager an amount anything from 50p to £100 on your game, wagers are held by the "house" who may even wish to take a small cut?

You would also have to specify ranks i guess to stop all you big hats taking everyones hard earned pennies.

Like i say, its probably impossible... but imaging winning a tourney and not just thinkin woo i won a touney look at my wonderful rank... but woo i won a tourney and look i won 250quid to boot!

This will improve the following aspects of the site:

Add an extra element of "risk" and well .......bump up my credit card bill

If you read the forum guidelines you'd see that that is one of the few things that they ban here on the forums. If you want to bet on the games outside of the community, well, your life is your life, but CC will never endorse you in any way. Sorry.